Resources for Faculty

This document is framed as "quick start" guide to provide some suggestions for best practices in utilizing ePortfolios, on the following; 

Table of Contents [click to jump to section]

Articles on ePortfolios

Other free ePortfolios tools 

Blackboard Video Tutorials

Other Links

Looking into ePortfolios?

What are ePortfolios?

"Portfolios are portable collections or electronic spaces where [students] can showcase artifacts that communicate identity, interest, skills, talents, and qualifications for a particular career of industry" (Tanner, M. Introduction to Integrative Studies. (2nd) 2016, Kendall Hunt, p. 127). Offering any type of portfolio in an online environment transforms a portfolio into an ePortfolio.

"The learning portfolio is a flexible, evidence-based tool that engages students in a process of continuous reflection and collaborative analysis of learning. As written text, electronic display, or other creative project, the portfolio captures the scope, richness, and relevance of students' intellectual development, critical judgment, and academic skills. The portfolio focuses on purposefully and collaboratively selected reflections and evidence for both improvement and assessment of student learning." [Zubizarreta, J. (2009). The learning portfolio: Reflective practice for improving student learning (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., p. 20]

Advantages of ePortolios

• Provides a way for the department to assess your classroom deliverables and feedback thereby illustrating your value and process (to some degree).
• As it includes student reflections, you can assess how students assess your teaching.
• Show students the value of your teaching.

Types of ePortfolios

• Student descriptions about the why and how of their learning
• Student reflections
• Career preparation
• Collection of best artifacts
• Capstone document

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Articles on ePortfolios

• Yancey, Kathleen Blake. "Grading ePortfolios: Tracing Two Approaches, Their Advantages, and Their Disadvantages." Theory Into Practice 54.4 (2015): 301-08. Web. 
  • This article presents research on grading ePortfolios in the undergraduate and graduate level. When are scoring rubrics or "staging conversations", as Moss, Girard, and Haniford (2006) recommend for fostering learning, useful?
• Panos, Alexandra. "Reflections from Preservice to Novice Teaching: One Perspective on the Role of ePortfolios." Theory Into Practice 54.4 (2015): 292-300. Web.
  • This article chronicles a preservice teacher's use of ePortfolios to improve her teaching. She contends that "ePortfolios provided a space for reflection as performance, giving me an additional means of inquiring into my classroom and becoming an integral and defining component of a commitment to reflective teaching practices" (Abstract).
• Dana D'angelo, Chris Finnin, and Jennifer Wright. "The Impact of ePortfolios on Students' Learning." International Journal of Business and Social Research 2.4 (2013): 25-34. Web.
  • This article presents research on the impact of ePortfolios on learning, in particular the students' perceptions of learning, in a business curriculum (Abstract).

 

Other FREE ePortfolio tools 

• Medium (Sample Medium ePortfolio)
• Wix (Sample Wix ePortfolio)
• Vizualize.me (Sample Vizualize.me ePortfolio)
• PortfolioBox (Sample PortfolioBox ePortfolio)
• WordPress (Sample WordPress ePortfolio)

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Blackboard Video Tutorials

Creating a Portfolio Assignment: This video will show you how to create a content area, what a content area is, and how to make an assignment a Portfolio submission. As an instructor, you can also create a Portfolio template of your own for your students to use, here.

 

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Creating a Portfolio Tool Link: This video will show you what a tool link is, how to add the Portfolio homepage tool think to allow students access their Portfolios, how to create a Portfolio tool link to allow students view and comment on each other's portfolio, and also introduces other possible tool links.

 

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Choosing a Portfolio Template: This video will show you the 7 Portfolios templates you'll likely encounter on Blackboard. As an instructor, you can also create a Portfolio template of your own for your students to use, here.

 

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Downloading portfolios for assessment: This video will show you how a portfolio will look on the grading page, and how a portfolio will look on a computer, including how the files will be presented.

 

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Other Links

Student Resources

Departmental Considerations

Practice, Pedagogy and Assessment of Portfolios

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